Defining and Debating ‘Judicial Hellholes’

This will be our last word on “Judicial Hellholes,” the American Tort Reform Association’s list of plaintiff-friendly jurisdictions. In this morning’s NYT, Adam Liptak questions the report’s arguments and evidence. “It is, for starters, a collection of anecdotes based largely on newspaper accounts,” he writes. “It has no apparent methodology.” In response the ATRA spokesman said, “We have never claimed to be an empirical study . . . It’s no more or less subjective than what appears in The New York Times.”

The column also references a provocative quote by one Dickie Scruggs — click here for Law Blog Background — that ATRA features as an epigraph to its report:

What I call the ‘magic jurisdiction,’ [is] where the judiciary is elected with verdict money. The trial lawyers have established relationships with the judges that are elected; they’re State Court judges; they’re popul[ists]. They’ve got large populations of voters who are in on the deal, they’re getting their [piece] in many cases. And so, it’s a political force in their jurisdiction, and it’s almost impossible to get a fair trial if you’re a defendant in some of these places. . . . These cases are not won in the courtroom. They’re won on the back roads long before the case goes to trial. Any lawyer fresh out of law school can walk in there and win the case, so it doesn’t matter what the evidence or law is.

Liptak raises the question: If judges can be bought with money from plaintiffs bar, can’t it also be bought by cash from corporate America? Noting Scruggs’s indictment last month on charges of trying to bribe a judge (he has pleaded not guilty), Liptak writes: “There is, of course, a difference between what he was charged with doing and the routine phenomenon of allowing judges to accept campaign contributions from the people who appear before them. There is a difference, sure, but is it one of kind or one of degree?”

About Law Blog

The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

Must Reads

Plaintiffs' lawyers dodged a bullet last year when the U.S. Supreme Court spared a quarter-century-old precedent that had served as the legal linchpin of the modern investor class-action case. Despite that win, a new report suggests that securities class actions have lost some of their firepower.

In a week in which images of Prophet Muhammad were connected to acts of terror and defiant expressions of freedom, a sculpture of the prophet of Islam inside the U.S. Supreme Court has drawn little notice.

Alan Dershowitz has vowed to slap a defamation suit against the two lawyers who claimed in a court document that Florida financier Jeffrey Epstein arranged sexual liaisons for him with an underage prostitute. Those lawyers have beaten him to the punch.

The salacious allegations against Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz that surfaced in a federal lawsuit involving convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have generated international attention. Drawing less coverage is the lawsuit itself -- a case with the potential to expand the rights of crime victims during federal investigations.